Free Republic

Patient data at UT Southwestern Medical Center, including social security numbers for some, was stolen in a cyberattack on the Dallas hospital's software, officials announced Thursday. The hospital was notified on May 30 that two days earlier, on May 28, "an unknown individual exploited a previously unidentified vulnerability within the software," allowing them to access files stored on the hospital's MOVEit server. The hospital's privacy office confirmed that some protected health information was stolen as a result of the attack. The information included patient data that could have included name, medical record number, date of birth, name of medication, dosage...

Gov. Rick Perry announced Tuesday that UT Southwestern Medical Center will head up one of two designated treatment centers for Ebola patients in Texas. “The goal of these facilities is to rival the most advanced facilities in the world,” the governor said at a news conference at the Dallas hospital. “I don’t think there is a better institution in the world” than UT Southwestern. The state’s other treatment facility will be at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. UT Southwestern will staff and provide other expertise for the treatment facility, but it won’t be on the hospital’s campus...

A Dallas doctor says he wants to punish two women who accused him of choking them during sexual attacks. Dr. Alireza Atef-Zafarmand has taken the unusual step of suing the women, alleging defamation, slander and other wrongdoing. He has also sought to have a third woman held in contempt of court for refusing to testify in one of the lawsuits. As part of that effort, one of his lawyers revealed her name and details of her medical records in a recent Dallas County state district court filing. That disclosure led the Texas Medical Board to intervene in the suit late...

WASHINGTON - The Veterans Affairs Department no longer will pay for studies that seek to show stress is the primary cause of mysterious ailments afflicting thousands of veterans of the 1991 Gulf War. For years the federal government has pointed to stress as the likely reason for the sicknesses. But Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi is to announce the VA will set aside up to $15 million for a year of Gulf War illness research. A stipulation is that the money not pay for studies that propose stress as the only explanation for the ailments, said Stephan Fihn, the...